The effective utilization of energies derived from nature's intermittent but inexhaustible sources, such as those inherent in the wind, the tides and waves, has brought forth a tremendous outpouring of man's creative talent. The limited supply of easily accessible fossil fuel available to contemporary civilization has fostered a research and development program involving tremendous amounts of money to speed and encourage this creative effort. The inventor fully endorses this program of large-scale energy systems' development and realizes that contemporary civilization will not be able to progress without these systems coming on-line in the not too distant furture. The inventor also realizes that when these systems do come on-line, there will be vast geographical areas of the world where power from these systems will not be available because of economic or other factors. Inexpensive small-scale energy collection and storage systems can be utilized to fill some of the energy gap that will exist in these areas, and the system herein described was designed with this gap in mind.
The varying intensities and intermittent nature of winds create a collection and storage problem. Vast amounts of creative energy have been expended in finding solutions to these problems. The system herein described offers nothing new in this area, other than a novel approach to energy collection, storage, and utilization. The novelty factor involved consists in the utilization of compressed air to lift water in steps to an elevated reservoir, and the extraction of energy from the reservoir, in just one step, by means of an hydraulic air compressor. No mechanical energy-transfer devices are utilized in the energy storage or extraction process. This eliminates the need for piston or turbine type mechanical pumps. In this particular installation herein outlined, the initial air supply to the system is provided by a wind turbine driving a conventional piston-type air compressor. As will be explained in the text, a remotely-located hydraulic air compressor could also be utilized to obtain the initial compressed air supply, which would free the system from a dependence on any mechanical type of pumping device.